A member of the government’s communication team, Alfred Thompson, has intimated that the decision by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) to rescind its directive on the use of Ghana Card to receive salaries is a good one.
He averred that the decision will help most of the public sector workers buy time in acquiring the card. He stated that, although the workers were directed to register with the NIA and to receive their salaries accordingly, the Ministry of Employment however sat down to redecide the directive.
“When you are dealing with a listening government,;it would always listen to you and work to make sure that both parties are satisfied. We do the right thing and we explain why we do the right thing. When you take certain decisions, you can look at it and go back. It is only a fool who doesn’t change his mind and listen to others”.
Alfred Thompson
Mr. Thompson revealed that government sat down with the Employment relations and labor unions, CAGD and the Ministry of Finance to look at the entirety of the situation and concluded on giving the people time to pair their names on their payroll with their Ghana card . He added that CAGD should afterwards inform the necessary departments that, those who haven’t done so, should be given the time to do so “which makes sense”.
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“I believe that under the ministries [Employment and Finance], they thought through it, they listened to the people and they’ve looked at it and they’ve said that lets go this way which is a good thing. It is a win-win situation”.
Alfred Thompson
Juxtaposing number of registrants on CAGD’s payroll to Ghana card
Contributing to the conversation, Mark Arkoh, the Youth Organizer for the People’s National Convention (PNC), asserted that there are many positive aspects with the Ghana card for salary initiative because of the numerous corruption issues. Also
However, he questioned why the Controller and Accountant General Department took the decision itself and later had to invite the various ministries to decide if it was the way to go. He then argued that, that was not the “best way to go”.
“How many people do we have on the payroll? Look at the number of people that we have that are supposed to be registered on the Ghana card on the data base. How many people do we have that controller accountant general is paying them? Its less than one million. And how many people are registered on the database of the Ghana Card. Let us look at some reasonable reasons why the people should get registered on the Ghana card data base to explain to them to get the positive effect.
“But not to come and tell us that, we are registering our phone numbers;and if you don’t have it, you can’t take your salary. No! We are trying to put a square pipe in a round hole which is not possible. Let us come out clearly and explain to the good people of Ghana and at the end of the day,;these are the benefits that will come to us”.
Mark Arkoh
Mr. Arkoh therefore blamed government for failure to adequately communicate on the registration and the benefits the government workers will get. Also
